PSAM 16 Conference Paper Overview
Welcome to the PSAM 16 Conference paper and speaker overview page.
Lead Author: Emily Sandt Co-author(s): Adam Williams adwilli@sandia.gov
Tunc Aldemir aldemir.1@osu.edu
| Technique for Managing STPA Results in Physical Security Applications |
|---|
| Mitigating risk at nuclear power plants and other nuclear facilities includes security of the site and material. Current processes to determine what needs to be protected—so-called vital area identification (VAI)—leverages safety analytic methods and previously completed safety analyses in its methodology through use of Fault Tree (FT) based logic models. Though successful to date, VAI traditional approaches heavily rely on completed nuclear safety analyses that may not exist for novel advanced or small modular reactor facilities. In response, a newly proposed method for informing the vital area identification process incorporates Systems Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA). STPA’s systems and control theory basis allows for a single analysis that incorporates multiple adversary objectives. This is both an advancement over the current methodology that only considers sabotage of material and can lead to a broad output of potential areas for protection. A frequent criticism of STPA is the lack of prioritization of its high output volume that can be challenging for practical implementation. This work describes a prioritization strategy for managing the results from an STPA for physical security through ranking identified areas based on their frequency of appearance. Using appearance frequency as the criterion for ranking promotes a “risk-informed” approach to identifying vital area sets. Risk-informing is a concept becoming more prevalent in nuclear security in an effort to incorporate state-of-the-art risk-related methodologies, particularly in advanced reactor and international applications. Providing a ranked set of STPA outcomes provides several benefits for physical security, including (but not limited to) offering an opportunity for physical security system design that moves away from costly retrofitting and prioritizing critical components for this protection. Invoking appearance frequency in STPA to improve VAI can also help reduce the cost of overall security system design and implementation. The prioritization of areas serves as a baseline for using STPA to enhance the process—ultimately overcoming criticisms of the currently used method and supporting more robust security systems for nuclear facilities. |
Paper ES302 Preview
Author and Presentation Info
Presentation only, a full paper is not available.
Lead Author Name: Emily Sandt (esandt@sandia.gov)
Bio: Emily is a graduate intern at Sandia National Laboratories and a PhD candidate at The Ohio State University. Her work focuses on improving the state of nuclear security both domestically and abroad. Her dissertation research is centered around using STPA to inform the vital area identification process. She has a background in DPRA and physics.
Country: United States of America
Company: Sandia National Laboratories
Job Title:
Bio: Emily is a graduate intern at Sandia National Laboratories and a PhD candidate at The Ohio State University. Her work focuses on improving the state of nuclear security both domestically and abroad. Her dissertation research is centered around using STPA to inform the vital area identification process. She has a background in DPRA and physics.
Country: United States of America
Company: Sandia National Laboratories
Job Title: